3 Absurd Reasons for Banning Drugs

LearnLiberty
Jan. 15, 2014

Did you know the war on drugs is founded on racist principles? Prof. Stephen Davies shows the historical thought process behind banning drugs. One of the main reasons drugs were banned initially is because people were concerned drug use would lead to interracial relationships. Can you imagine someone making that argument today? Yet it was a principle reason for some of the laws banning drugs that we still have. Other reasons for banning drugs included fear of conspiracies and the misguided notion that the government somehow has a right to the productivity of its citizens. All three of these reasons are truly absurd, but all three were historically used as arguments that contributed to the war on drugs. If these are the arguments on which the drug war is founded, can we be sure it's a war worth fighting for?

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Racism:

http://io9.com/anti-marijuana-laws-we... [article]: Annalee Newitz of IO9 explains that marijuana prohibition laws in the 1930s were designed with race in mind

http://lawenforcementtoday.com/2013/0... [article]: Nick Dial of Law Enforcement Today covers the history of how opium prohibition quickly became a propaganda tool used to create fear of Chinese people in the United States

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07... [link]: Lefty Coaster of Daily Kos examines and explains Dr. Michelle Alexander's conclusion of the Drug War as the new Jim Crow

https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&... [article]: Jim Crow's Drug War: Race, Coca Cola, and the Southern Origins of Drug Prohibition

Conspiracy Theory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilians [source]: Wikipedia's entry on "Reptilians" with further sources

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/ma... [article]: Conspiracy Theory Poll Result: 4% of voters believe "lizard people" control our societies

Legislating Morality & Virtue:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013... [article]: Igor Volsky of Think Progress reports on Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett's assumptions that unemployed people are on drugs

http://cannacentral.com/news/what-mot... [article]: Aaron Turpen of CannaCentral examines and demystifies the many different motivations behind marijuana prohibition

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/grass/ [film]: Ron Mann's film Grass explains how a relatively harmless drug has been demonized for decades

http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/ti... [book]: Harry G. Levine details the international war on drugs in his book The Secret of Worldwide Drug Prohibition

History:

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307... [journal]: Techniques of Social Reform: An Analysis of the New Prohibition Drive (1944) by Alfred McClug Lee

http://www.amazon.com/United-States-I... [reference]: David R. Bewley-Taylor's United States and International Drug Control, 1909-1997

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/H... [article]: Charles Whitebread's The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3... [article]: The 1909 Shanghai Opium Commission

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2... [article]: Matt Thompson details the mysterious history of marijuana and marijuana prohibition

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_h... [film]: Eugene Jarecki's film The House I Live In details the risks that prohibition poses to freedom

For more resources, transcripts, videos, and more visit: http://learnliberty.org/videos/3-absu...

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